[helmut_hed]

I do love war stories, but I think the OP has missed something:

After the meeting one of the managers told me that it was really our job to come up with projects that the customer wanted to buy, not the other way around. And it usually couldn't just be a general project for minor improvements, it'd need clear and ideally measurable goals

I think the OP has misunderstood the nature of consulting. This is exactly what needs to be done to convince X to spend some of their cash on having Y do work for them. You need to make a business case, with concrete duration, cost, goals, and benefits. That this system is a mess is really not in dispute by anyone... but no one will pay to improve it "just because".